Politics, current events, human interest & some humor

Tag Archives: DEMOCRACY RULES

The U.S. government is trying to lift a travel ban on a number of American citizens who were forbidden from leaving Egypt earlier this week, reports Daniel Tovrov: of the International Business Times (IBT).

At least 10 Americans and Europeans, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, working with non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in Egypt were barred from leaving the country after they tried to board a plane in the capital.

“We are urging the government of Egypt to lift these restrictions immediately and allow folks to come home as soon as possible,” State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Thursday.

Ah, the U.S. State Department. A collection of silver tongued orators that couldn’t talk their way out of a paper bag. Maybe if they “Stongly Urged” the Egyptians, the radicals in charge would free the captives, or hostages.

Yes, I said captives, hostages. They are being held against their will. What would you call them?

This would be funny if it weren’t so sad. It is, however, all too predictable.

In December, security forces of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) raided NGO
offices and confiscated files, computers and cash. They took the cash too?

“Officials in Washington, Berlin and London expressed alarm and dismay that democracy-building organizations would be subject to search and seizure, especially by a regime that receives so much Western military and economic aid,” The National Interest magazine said.

Do these Egg-Heads in Washington, Berlin & London not see the Egyptian leaders are not interested in “democracy building”? That was a rhetorical question. Are they all so insulated from the real world so as to not realize what is transpiring right in front of them? Another rhetorical question. Sorry.

In total, the U.S. sends more aid to Egypt than any other country except Israel. We’ve also equipped them with fighter jets, tanks, helicopters, surveillance aircrafts and anti-aircraft missiles.

So this is what we get for all the billions of dollars we’ve thrown away on the burgeoning “democracy” in Egypt. Harken back to the “Arab Spring”. The glorious freedom movement. Those were the days. Who could have predicted it would unfold this way? Oh, wait. Lots of us predicted just this!

Some of us didn’t. In February, 2011, Charles Krauthammer wrote,
“Who doesn’t love a democratic revolution? Who is not moved by the renunciation of fear and the reclamation of dignity in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria? … “The Egyptian awakening carries promise and hope and of course merits our support.”

Bill Kristol also writes in Feb. 2011, “The United States…has a paramount moral and strategic interest in real democracy in Egypt and freedom for the Egyptian people.”

At the same time they were crafting those sage words, they were deriding skeptics like Glenn Beck, many others, and me who were convinced it would unfold about as it has thus far.

Here is how the grand democratic experiment is taking shape thus far in the land of the Pharohs.

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which represents Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, has won 47 per cent of all seats in the country’s election for the lower house of parliament.

The hard-line Islamist Salafi al-Nour party has won 24 per cent of all seats.

The FJP has named Saad al-Katatni, a leading Muslim Brotherhood official, as speaker of the assembly.

Radical fundamentalists will now occupy a total of 71% of Parliament seats. Oh good.

Ten seats were reserved for appointees of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military council that has been ruling Egypt since Mubarak fell.

“This parliament, that has its opening session on Monday, has very limited powers,” reported Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros from Cairo, the Egyptian capital.
“The most important thing that it will be doing in the coming weeks and months is setting up a 100-member body that will then write the constitution.”